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A guy emailed me the other day (or maybe it was a comment on one of my infrequent posts — I can’t remember…). Whatever, the guy said something about how he was even worse about posting than I was. Man. Not good. I mean, I know I ought to post more often, but it just seems like something always comes up — work gets crazy or I get sick (dig the crazy flu that went around this season. Yowza!) or something…

But you know what? Those are excuses. The real reason I don’t post more frequently is quite simply that I don’t really get the whole blogging thing. My pal, Raph Koster, once told me that blog posts should be really (really!) short and posted really (REALLY) frequently. A few words here and there on a regular basis are better than than more words posted less regularly.

See. That’s the part I don’t get. I always joke that I can’t even say “Hello” in less than 1000 words but there’s more truth than humor in that statement. I don’t think in sound bites or short sentences (and few of them). I think in long form. (And I’m not very good at self-editing, in case you hadn’t noticed!)

What that means, blog-wise, is that I don’t want to post anything until I’ve thought it through and come up with a relatively coherent argument, with a beginning, middle and end… thesis, proof and conclusion…

Or maybe I’m just a wordy bastard, and a lazy one at that. Who can say?

Anyway, just felt I ought to get that out there and hope you’ll stick with me through the dry spells.

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5 Responses to “On Infrequent Blogging”

As someone whose blog was dormant for the entirety of 2007, I dig what you’re saying. That’s why I’m a fan of syndication – when you feel the need to post something, it shows up in Google Reader and I can get to it on my own time. (I actually have a hard time believing that people still click through massive bookmarks folders checking for site updates. Do these people write term papers in binary code? Do they type with their feet like Jeff Healey?)

By the way, it was fun hearing you and Paul on the GFW podcast last week.

Raph Koster is a clever guy with an interesting blog; but don’t let him think there is a ‘one true way to blogging’. I have blogs like Koster’s, Game|Life, and Gamasutra News to keep a ‘finger in the water’ of the industry. These blogs have high-volume/low-impact posts that rarely get more than a glance (although Koster somehow finds a way to say interesting things a half dozen times a day sometimes).

But the majority of the feeds in my reader are more similar to this one. Low-volume but high-quality. Each one gets a full read; sometimes I even set aside some quiet time so I can actually concentrate on what is said.

IANAB (i am not a blogger), but my advice would be write as much as you feel comfortable doing, but don’t feel compelled to meet some imaginary quota. There are plenty of people who appreciate blogs which produce one must-read post every few months.

See, that’s where RSS comes in. In reality, you only need that one really interesting post to get ’em to subscribe to the feed, and after that it doesn’t matter. As long as the overall quality doesn’t drop beyond the point where it’s easier to skim bad posts than it is to unsubscribe, you’re golden. :]

Personally, I prefer posts that have a little more meat to them, than simple link collections or one-liners. Not that such are not relevant, but there are much better ways for sharing those, than via a blogging platform. I almost never posted mere pointers on my blog.

friendfeed.com, founded by the guys behind GMail and Google Maps is such a service for instance. Tumblr with its streamlined interface/posting mechanism facilitates mini-post blogs better too.

I agree with driph above; RSS changes the rules. Raph’s advice would hold if you wanted people to actually visit the site on a regular basis to keep up on things. But with RSS readers, having a higher signal-to-noise ratio is more important than frequency.